Annet Mahendru admits that she wasn’t sure her character, Nina, would survive The Americans‘ second season given how she was playing both sides. Fortunately for both Mahendru and fans of the FX series, Nina did survive although her circumstances have drastically changed from seasons one and two.

With season three now underway and Nina locked up in prison, Mahendru took the time to take part in a conference call with journalists to discuss the show, Nina’s arc, and what viewers can expect from upcoming episodes.

FX’s The Americans airs on Wednesday nights at 10pm ET/PT.

Annet Mahendru The Americans Interview:

Obviously, it was a big blow to see Nina get sent back to Russia at the end of last season. What do you think was going on in her head, other than thoughts of the betrayal by Stan? Do you think there was any relief that it was finally over, that she didn’t have to play both sides anymore?

Annet Mahendru: “You know, yes. She is definitely going to face her own fate, and she’s decided to do it. She could have been exfiltrated. We had the car ready for her and Stan and already had the money for her and told her to run. I think she’s just going to face whatever it is.”

Nina is playing a bit of a different role this season. Can you talk a little bit about what’s in store for Nina in the coming episodes?

Annet Mahendru: “A lot of isolation. It’s finding your way to survive. She’s still tough. She’s still Nina but without all the ways she usually has to survive. It’s a really, really scary time, and you’re really just facing yourself.”

The scripts are so sharply written. Do the twists and turns still surprise you? And what was your initial reaction to getting the script for last season’s finale?

Annet Mahendru: “They always surprise me. It’s nice that way. I always know that there’s something crazy happening to Nina. There always is, but I never know what. The world is always moving, and it’s such a thrill for me as an artist. When I got the finale, I, too, was hopeful. There was still…Stan was in the car and she wasn’t alone yet. She wasn’t on the plane yet. There was a lot of possibility. Then you wait for the next one and then you find out that you’re in prison.”

You and Keri Russell don’t share any screen time, but there are a lot of similarities between Nina and Elizabeth. You’re both very good at your jobs, sometimes even more so than someone like Stan or someone like Philip. Do you see any similarities between Nina and Elizabeth?

Annet Mahendru: “Yes, that’s a great point. I do in the fact that Nina chooses to go back, not chooses, but she doesn’t run away. She doesn’t take Stan up on his plans because she was brought up in the Soviet Union. She’s a child of that belief system. The thing Stan is offering her is an American way; to have a choice, to get what you want, to succeed and then to be important. Her ways are you’re doing something for the greater good, for the people. She’s essentially jeopardized her people, and now she’s facing the consequences and she’s going for it. So that says a lot about, I guess, who she is. Elizabeth is also very true to her upbringing.”

Could you tell us anything about what we’ll see happen with Nina and her cellmate in the coming episodes?

Annet Mahendru: “Evi comes, and she’s a horrible intrusion to Nina’s life in prison, now to her little cell of privacy. She greets her with suspicion and hate because in her experience connecting with people has gotten her in trouble. Now she has nothing and who knows why this woman is there now and why she’s been joined with Nina. There’s just no trust at this point and no interest either. You’d think it’d be good to have someone to share with, but again, what can you share? You can’t in the world that she lives in.”

You mentioned there’s a lot of isolation for Nina this season. Are we going to see basically where her loyalties lie? She’s been betrayed on both sides and played both sides. Will you get to explore that at all this season, the idea of loyalty and the cause that she was originally brought into this whole world for?

Annet Mahendru: “Yes. She’s been there for four months now in isolation. One day sometimes is a long time. She’s been staring at those cracks on the wall and they kind of branch off and it’s kind of like her life. Had she done this, she would have been somewhere else. Had she never met Stan or actually never confessed where would her life have taken her?

She went from an accomplished KGB officer who’s done so much in her first tour, second in charge to a criminal. She’s thinking about Stan, and she’s thinking about Oleg, and about having nothing at the end and possibly facing 15 years at a prison camp. Just mulling over all that and going crazy.”

For season one, it was purely about survival and then in season two Nina felt she could play both sides. You didn’t know what her ultimate goal would be because she could easily go to either side. What’s her motivation this season? Is it survival? Is it trying to find a way out or maybe trying to find a loophole to escape?

Annet Mahendru: “I feel like she’s been doing everything that she’s been told to do. She’s been a really good student, and that has gotten her places. And now she’s, I think, really discovering who she really is and, I think, what her beliefs really are and what, maybe, what she wants. I think maybe we’ll really meet her now, this season.”

In an ideal case scenario, what would you like to happen to Nina in the endgame? Would you want her to defect or to run off with Oleg?

Annet Mahendru: “I want her to find her truth and her mission. Everything’s been part of someone else, a man, many men. She’s just maneuvering through and trying her best. I’ve been really ready for Nina to have her own mission; then you really discover who she is, and I think that’s really exhilarating.”

Does she have somebody she talk to and let her guard down and really show us who she is outside of the guard that she shows?

Annet Mahendru: “It’s always a tough one because she was trained to be a spy, so she’s always shape-shifting. She can be anything. That’s what she’s cut out to be, so to say. She’s had great training to connect with people. Again, but it’s all part of the job. She may enjoy it, or you may see her being her but, again, she knows the consequences. She knows if she opens too much, or if she doesn’t open enough, then she failed.

Her job so far has been seeing through people, working with these men. That was her mission, is people. It’s never just been, even with Oleg. Stan is a detective and Oleg is a spy, so she hasn’t yet met, I guess, a human being that’s just being real, being who they are without anyone to answer to. So, I don’t know. Then Oleg’s father comes to see her and there’s a lot of hope and it’s bizarre that he’s there. He’s a man of great influence, and again, he can do something for her just like the other men were able to, at least promise her survival.

At the same time, it’s so embarrassing. Here she is sitting, a criminal. Oleg really loves this woman and it’s very touching that someone actually loves you and is still fighting for you when you can have completely failed and have nothing. I think that really moves something in her.”

Has it surprised you that your character has stayed alive as long as she has? Has there been point where you thought it had to be the end for Nina?

Annet Mahendru: “Yes, the finale of season two. I remember I hadn’t gotten the script yet and things were looking really bad. Nina knew from the start that it would be impossible to turn Stan, and yet she did what she could and then comes to know, and of course, he’s unturnable. I was just waiting for the script and then I get a phone call from Joe and Joel and I was like, ‘This is deep. Is this the ‘you’re going to die?’ Oh, great.’ And they’re like, ‘No.’

I live for the story and there’s an aspect that, ‘Oh great, you’re dead.’ But you’re so in the story that, hey, if she needs to die. These writers, they create our world. They’re our father. You believe in their plan and if you’re going to die, you’re going to die. You’re doing it for the story. It’s so intense, even when I sit down and watch it on Wednesdays. I watch it, I’m there for the story, and I’m always laughing and screaming. It’s an incredible world. It’s so much fun.”

The show takes place during a time in the 1980s when American culture was trying to put down woman, yet there’s something like Working Girl and the rise of women starting to come up in the working field. Can you talk about Nina’s place within this discussion of women empowerment and on this show?

Annet Mahendru: “That’s a great, great topic. It’s been so interesting because she’s with these men ultimately, but there’s so much strength to her, and the men value that and see that in her. They work together and it’s so important when that happens. It feels like 50/50 with Stan and her other interactions and that’s what it should be like. They play their separate roles, as a woman and as a man, but they come together, and they do together and they understand each other. That’s really empowering.

Nina comes from a working-class family. She’s a very young pioneer. She went to school, studied her butt off, and got herself to this posting with her own merit and her abilities. She’s capable of anything. She’s worked really hard and she’s got her first posting in America. She’s there to protect the interests of her country, in a different country.

It’s such a position of strength and to see this woman survive is empowering, I guess. Even though Stan is a married man, it’s not definitive circumstances for this exploration but it comes all from a deeper place. It’s not selfish. It’s not conniving. It’s not any of that. She’s truly just finding her own way, working. Yes, I guess, she’s the example of a woman in those times and making really difficult decisions, but making them and following through. She really inspires me.”

– Also of interest: Matthew Rhys interview / Keri Russell interview